The legislation governing mobility and layoffs must also be applied for managers, and Italy, having never provided for such an equalization, has violated Community law. This was established by the Court of Justice of the European Union, noting how national legislation "illegally excludes” managers from the redundancy procedure regulated by the community directive on collective redundancies.
On a legal level, the Italian civil code (article 2095) distinguishes four categories of workers: executives, managers, white collar workers and blue collar workers. But our country with the law for the implementation of the Community directive on collective dismissal refers to workers, employees and managers, excluding managers. The European Commission therefore asked for explanations on the matter, deeming that the category of executives also includes people in an employment relationship. According to the Community executive, the directive in question has not been correctly implemented by Italian law, given that the Community legislation "extends to all workers without exception" while at the national level only workers, employees and paintings.
In 2008, the Commission therefore appealed to the Luxembourg body, which after more than five years put an end to a dispute in which Italy is recognized as defaulting. Indeed, the Court of Justice of the EU considers that Italy "having excluded, with law 223/1991, the category of executives from the scope of application of the procedure set forth in directive 98/59/EC on the approximation of the laws of the member states on the matter of collective redundancies, Italy has failed to fulfill its obligations”.
